The Moving Finger - Agatha Christie [26]
“Good morning,” said Miss Griffith. “I hear you’ve got Megan Hunter here?”
“We have.”
“Very good of you, I’m sure. It must be rather a nuisance to you. I came up to say she can come to us if you like. I dare say I can find ways of making her useful about the house.”
I looked at Aimée Griffith with a good deal of distaste.
“How kind of you,” I said. “But we like having her. She potters about quite happily.”
“I dare say. Much too fond of pottering, that child. Still, I suppose she can’t help it, being practically half-witted.”
“I think she’s rather an intelligent girl,” I said.
Aimée Griffith gave me a hard stare.
“First time I’ve ever heard anyone say that of her,” she remarked. “Why, when you talk to her, she looks through you as though she doesn’t understand what you are saying!”
“She probably just isn’t interested,” I said.
“If so, she’s extremely rude,” said Aimée Griffith.
“That may be. But not half-witted.”
Miss Griffith declared sharply:
“At best, it’s woolgathering. What Megan needs is good hard work—something to give her an interest in life. You’ve no idea what a difference that makes to a girl. I know a lot about girls. You’d be surprised at the difference even becoming a Guide makes to a girl. Megan’s much too old to spend her time lounging about and doing nothing.”
“It’s been rather difficult for her to do anything else so far,” I said. “Mrs. Symmington always seemed under the impression that Megan was about twelve years old.”
Miss Griffith snorted.
“I know. I had no patience with that attitude of hers. Of course she’s dead now, poor woman, so one doesn’t want to say much, but she was a perfect example of what I call the unintelligent domestic type. Bridge and gossip and her children—and even there that Holland girl did all the looking after them. I’m afraid I never thought very much of Mrs. Symmington, although of course I never suspected the truth.”
“The truth?” I said sharply.
Miss Griffith flushed.
“I was terribly sorry for Dick Symmington, its all having to come out as it did at the inquest,” she said. “It was awful for him.”
“But surely you heard him say that there was not a word of truth in that letter—that he was quite sure of that?”
“Of course he said so. Quite right. A man’s got to stick up for his wife. Dick would.” She paused and then explained: “You see, I’ve known Dick Symmington a long time.”
I was a little surprised.
“Really?” I said. “I understood from your brother that he only bought this practice a few years ago.”
“Oh yes, but Dick Symmington used to come and stay in our part of the world up north. I’ve known him for years.”
Women jump to conclusions that men do not. Nevertheless, the suddenly softened tone of Aimée Griffith’s voice put, as our old nurse would have expressed it, ideas into my head.
I looked at Aimée curiously. She went on—still in that softened tone:
“I know Dick very well… He’s a proud man, and very reserved. But he’s the sort of man who could be very jealous.”
“That would explain,” I said deliberately, “why Mrs. Symmington was afraid to show him or tell him about the letter. She was afraid that, being a jealous man, he might not believe her denials.”
Miss Griffith looked at me angrily and scornfully.
“Good Lord,” she said, “do you think any woman would go and swallow a lot of cyanide of potassium for an accusation that wasn’t true?”
“The coroner seemed to think it was possible. Your brother, too—”
Aimée interrupted me.
“Men are all alike. All for preserving the decencies. But you don’t catch me believing that stuff. If an innocent woman gets some foul anonymous letter, she laughs and chucks it away. That’s what I—” she paused suddenly, and then finished, “would do.”
But I had noticed the pause. I was almost sure that what she had been about to say was “That’s what I did.”
I decided to take the war into the enemy’s country.
“I see,” I said pleasantly, “so you’ve had one, too?”
Aimée Griffith was the type of woman who scorns to lie. She paused a minute—flushed, then said:
“Well, yes. But I didn’t let it worry me!”